Germany’s Delivery Hero Introduces Its Own Venture Capital Fund

German food delivery platform Delivery Hero is launching its own early-stage venture capital (VC) firm — DX Ventures — that will be managed independently to focus on advancing founder-led startups.

“Being a family of founders, investing in entrepreneurship is an integral part of Delivery Hero’s journey,” Duncan McIntyre, managing director of DX Ventures, said in a Tuesday (Jan. 12) press release. “We understand the opportunities and challenges these startups are facing because we have gone through them ourselves.” 

Aside from delivering restaurant food and groceries, the Berlin-headquartered company has made it part of its strategy to invest in top technology startups and “guide them on their path to lasting success,” McIntyre said.

DX Ventures will strive to combine global insights and local know-how to help startups grow, while also developing long-term partnerships with founders. The company intends to extend technical support and guidance throughout a startup’s lifecycle and is especially interested in assisting founders bent on disrupting traditional industries.

The early-stage VC firm has 50 million euros of initial capital and is planning to target worldwide startups in on-demand services, food technology, sustainable innovation, artificial intelligence, FinTech and logistics.

The company has extended more than 500 million euros in minority investments that include globally successful startups Rappi, Glovo and Impossible Foods.

Delivery Hero operates in 50 countries in over 700 cities across Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. Focusing on quick commerce, its goal is to deliver groceries and household goods in less than 20 minutes. 

In July, Delivery Hero closed a $360 million acquisition deal with InstaShop, one of the biggest digital food delivery firms in the Middle East and North Africa. 

The company went public in 2017 on the Frankfurt stock exchange, and in 2020 became part of the blue-chip index DAX (Deutscher Aktienindex). The company replaced payments firm Wirecard, which in 2018 took Commerzbank’s spot on the index. Wirecard became insolvent over allegations of missing funds and money laundering that resulted in several arrests.